To Do This Week
Framing (5%) DUE:
30 seconds
- Tell a “story” in at least 5 shots and between 20 and 30 seconds in duration.
- Use framing and camera position to narrate an event, story, incident or dramatic reveal.
- Use a monopod or tripod to hold each shot steady – no moving camera for this assignment.
- You may use natural sound and sound effects, but don’t add a music track or voice over.
How would you frame a sequence of shots showing a messy kitchen and then the guilty pet in the corner? How would you frame someone anxious about opening up a letter they just picked up at the mailbox?
This is an exercise in visual storytelling. Most popular movies begin with a sequence of shots: the setting/landscape followed by medium shots of the subjects and then close-ups to emphasize a detail like a face or object etc. Or a scene can begin with a close-up and slowly reveal the wider context. The point is to connect each shot spatially and much of this is controlled by frame to frame relationships. A wide shot of a person, followed by a close up their eyes will seem as a spatial whole. This is the basic grammar of visual storytelling, using the frame to define sets of relationships in space and time.
Blog Post:
This is an exercise to illustrate how continuity editing and framing are used to make a space and build a narrative. Select one of these scenes from Duel.
What kind of continuity edits are used to build the scene? Try to use continuity terms:
- 180 degree rule
- 30 degree rule
- Cut in / Match on Action (from wide to close-up or reverse)
- Motivated POV shot
- Shot Reverse Shot
- Empty frame
- Graphic Match
- Parallel action/ Crosscut
Describe how the arrangement of shots make a believable space. How does the framing focus attention to narrative detail? Discuss the role of sound in supporting the spatial relationships made in the cuts. If possible, comment on how the continuity editing in the scene (the spatial and temporal relationships from shot to shot) builds the tension of the story. What narrative information is revealed and concealed in the scene through the cuts?
Class
- Continuity and Storytelling / Classical Hollywood Style > conflict, action/movement in space
- Continuity Rules / plan vs spontaneity
- Duel – sound, continuity and montage
- Watch 30 sec videos.
- Imaginary Space exercise.
Notes
Watch Framing assignments…
Discuss Duel, by Steven Spielberg
The Classical Hollywood Style:
Silent 1895-1915 > Studio System 1915-1960s
- Individual characters are causal agents. Characters make things happen in story. Psychologically rooted
- Desire of main individual (protagonist) sets plot rolling > goal.
- Opposition to the goal > conflict
- Chain of cause and effect. We don’t see what is outside the chain of cause and effect. Plot will jump in time to show only the important links in chain. The deadline as defined time marker that motivates action.
- Objectivity. Omniscient pov. Unrestricted access to all events whether protagonist sees them or not.
- Closure. No loose ends.
“Rules” Continuity Editing (and Shooting):
- Establishing shot
- 180 degree rule
- 30 degree rule
- Cut in / Match on Action
- Motivated Pov shot
- Eyeline match/ Shot Reverse Shot
- Empty frame
- Graphic Match
- Parallel action/ Crosscutting
Movement through spaces driven by the narrative.
Student late to class in 5 shots…
Discuss Duel, by Steven Spielberg
Screen Direction:
5:50
22:26
POV:
Gas Station scene: 9:51 (foreground, middle-ground, background)
Bar Scene: 30:13
Match on Action:
Snakes 56:09
Rhythm of editing
1:20:27
End collision
1:25:15
POV Shots – watching character watching, getting in their heads
Continuity Tricks
All edits are discontinuous. Editing is a trick of condensing and expanding illusions of space and time for story effects. Story effects are built from the juxtaposition of discontinuous units: Frame-Shot-Sequence-Act-Story.
Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister’s ‘Listen to Britain’
Tricks for a sense of continuous narrative space…
Student Continuity Work:
In-class Group activity – Imaginary Space
Shoot and edit a video (20-30 seconds) that uses continuity rules to connect discontinuous spaces into an imaginary whole. For example, a character leaves the bathroom and walks into a parking lot, etc.
Skyfall Exercise
Assignment: Due Sept 13th
Continuity (5%) :
30-60 seconds
Shoot and edit a short video that follows the principles of continuity to create the illusion of continuous space and time. You can even use principles of continuity to create an imaginary space. Try to vary the angles and distances of your shots: establishing shot, medium-shot, close-up, extreme-close-up. Sound may be an element here, but please do not include talking, music or verbal explanations. We are working on visual explanations, depicting continuity of action. Below are some ideas.
- Making or Doing Something:
Document someone making something or doing some focused activity, like cooking. The process may take 3-30 minutes, but the final video should be no more than 60 seconds. Document a single continuous action (making art, playing sports, cooking a meal, walking a dog) and edit it into a sequence that is between 30-60 seconds. - Spatial Story
Narrate a fictional event using rules of spatial/temporal continuity: a chase, a search through a house, a commute, going for a walk
Post on the blog your Continuity Assignment with a Vimeo/Youtube embed (place the url on its own line)